Christian Brothers Academy Chess Wins State Team Championship

LINCROFT, NJ – Continuing their historic season, the CBA chess team won the New Jersey Team Championship this past weekend at Union County Vocational-Technical School in Scotch Plains.

The all-senior team of Daniel Draganoff, John-Gabriel Bermudez, Marc Sorrentino, Matt Notaro, and Michael Gilbride won all five of their matches to cap the team victory.

In the final round of play, the CBA team defeated respected programs from High Technology High School, St. Joseph’s of Metuchen, Union Vocational-Technical, Sparta, and Millburn.

Draganoff won the top first board honors for the entire state. Each member of the varsity squad won an individual board honor.

In total, 25 members of the program competed in both the varsity and junior varsity sections of the tournament. Other individual board winners were Kevin Cisneros, Thomas Greenwald, Jonathan Wuestneck, Jacob Dice, and Alec Almeida.

Since the trophy’s founding in 1956, CBA has won the state’s top title in 1980, 1985, 2007, 2015, and now 2018.

The state-wide win comes just two weeks after CBA Chess captured the Shore League title for the first time since 2011. The team of Draganoff, Bermudez, Sorrentino, Notaro and Gilbride defeated High Tech by a score of 4-1 to secure the league victory.